


Crash and Break Down

by FlameBlownWhiter



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, My messed up babies, This is just a conversation, between, two very broken people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-19
Updated: 2016-10-19
Packaged: 2018-08-23 08:50:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8321599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlameBlownWhiter/pseuds/FlameBlownWhiter
Summary: Takes place early into the seventh season, Willow is skittish, Spike is kinda insane, and they are both so very very sorry.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hi_irashay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hi_irashay/gifts).



The Summers’ kitchen was still and dark. Empty in a way that made it clear it was lacking anything living, Spike included. He liked hanging out in the kitchen when the house was sleeping. It wasn’t as cold as the rest of the place. He could smell where life had been, could almost see it happening, the bustle, the to and fro of the Summers girls. It was mapped out in every unwashed plate, faded fingerprint, and sticky surface. 

Buffy was never the house-maker Joyce was, and would never be, given her hours. Spike tilted his head and looked at the time on the oven. 

2:42 am

It was late, but Buffy still had another hour or so of patrol. Spike rolled his lips, biting lightly on the inside of his cheeks. He should be out there with her.  It had been a slow night, thankfully, but not a good one for Spike, so Buffy had sent him home early.  _ “Just go home and look in on Dawn, I got this.”  _

He scoffed; it was sweet of her to try and protect his ego, but he  _ was _ tired. He knew it. It still took a considerable amount of energy to make himself appear sane, not that he ever felt sane anymore. He and Buffy were trying to do a better job at recognizing when the other one was at their limit. 

Spike looked down at the full mug in his hand, the acrid smell of decaying blood bright in the air. Twisting the mug around he read the words _ “You’re a wizard, Harry”  _ scrawled across it, with a snowy white owl swooping down. 

“Yeah, I’d say I’ve hit my limit,” he muttered to the empty room. He forced himself not to wince as the cold blood covered his throat, wishing he had taken the moment to heat it up. He was so distracted by the sludge creeping down his trachea that he almost missed the soft padded sound of sock-covered feet on the stair. 

He did hear it, though, and turned to see Willow pause at the entrance to the kitchen. 

“Oh, Spike, hey, you’re home. Buffy with you?”  Willow warily walked into the room, all fake courage and uncomfortable smiles that didn’t quite manage to make it to her eyes. She’d been jumpy since she got back from England and the hippie Wicca Brady Bunch, having decided to not destroy the world. 

He had to admit, it was pretty heavy stuff. 

Spike was glad he had been gone for that bit; he wasn’t sure what he would have done. Ruthless killer meets former-friend-now-world-ender -- the last time he was in that situation, his friend ended up with the pointy bit of a sword through his chest. 

“No, she’s still out, doing the whole lone Slayer thing. Told me to come home to watch over you and the little bit.” Willow’s face fell and her heart jumped. She smelled, what, disappointed? Concerned? He looked at her oddly. “Probably just wanted some alone time.” He paused, deciding whether to say anything, before the nagging pit in his soul spurred him onwards. Curious, he asked, “Anything the matter, pet?” 

She stood there, in front of the stools, looking at her hands. The pregnant silence went on a little too long. When there was either too much stillness or too many people for too long, Spike started thinking about all the things he tried to not think about anymore. 

“Oh bloody hell,” he said, putting the cup in the sink and turning towards the basement door. “I wasn’t asking for - “ 

“Spike.” Willow said his name with conviction. But he was  _ tired _ ; whatever deep dark secret she wanted to share could bloody wait till he was less likely to claw his own face off. 

“No love, let me go.” 

“I forgive you.” 

_ What? _

He turned on her quickly, quicker than a human was capable of. Her face looked hopeful, her mouth pressed into a thin lipped smile. “You what?” 

“I know none of us have really said anything what with the...” she moved her hands awkwardly, trying to appear forceful, “but…” Willow faltered as she felt his cold unbelieving stare. “What?” 

“You?” he said incredulously. “You? Forgive me?” 

“Yes, I - “ 

He scoffed, stepping towards her. His black boots were silent on the tile floor, his upper body bent towards hers. “You can’t forgive me.” 

His voice sounded like a bark to his own ears. He needed to keep it together. 

Willow looked flustered, pink rising in her cheeks. Spike took a second to feel accomplished; this clearly wasn’t going the way she wanted. “But - “ 

”No,” he said definitively, stopping her in her tracks. “For one, you aren’t Buffy. And while I enjoy our little ‘please bite me, Buffy’” club,” he said, his voice mockingly high. “Buffy’s forgiveness is what counts.” He was nonchalant, ignoring how her blush had spread to the roots of her hair. “And two, you can’t forgive me ‘cause you can’t even forgive yourself.” 

She stared at him, her mouth open just a bit like she was searching for the words to snap back at him. 

“What?” he said, losing his patience. She was looking at him like he had told her the king of all demons was tap-dancing behind her wearing a kitten costume. “You’ve been dragging your feet, moping about here for weeks now - “ 

“I have not been moping,” she said under her breath.

“ Moping  about, feeling sorry for yourself. Well, I have a secret for you, Red: we are all monsters here. The truth, and it’s sappy Hollywood bullshit, is that all the world could forgive you, but that really doesn’t matter. The only forgiveness that matters is your own.” 

“Yeah,” she said, her short hair waving slightly in repressed fury. “How is that working out for ya?” It was maybe the most direct thing she’d said to him since she got back. 

“I’m a work in progress, never claimed any different.”

“Well, you didn’t try to destroy the world!” 

She had screamed it. Terror momentarily overcame her features, the blush was instantly gone and drained from her face, her skin a stark white against the dark of the room. Her eyes flicked up towards where Dawn was sleeping. They were both quiet for a moment, but when neither heard anything her eyes shifted sharply to his. 

“The worst part is, some part of me, in some dark corner that I can’t Mr. Clean away - I... I still want to.” Willow’s voice was low but steady, “I want to, Spike. What sort of person  _ wants  _ that?” 

_ No rest for the wicked.  _ Spike sighed and resigned himself to the fact that he wasn’t getting away any time soon. “Wants to what, luv? End the world?”

“Yes.” 

“All of us,” he said casually, calmly. “A part of every single person on this forsaken miserable planet just wants to see the world burn. It’s why you Americans are all obsessed with horror movies and guns. Part of you  _ craves _ it.” 

“Americans?” 

“Well, us British are much more civilized,” he said, smirking, craving a cigarette. He  wanted something to occupy his hands. “The key to humanity, I have recently found out, is giving a fuck about giving a fuck.”

It was like someone suddenly cut Willow’s strings. The tension in her body faded and her bravado went with it – she looked very small. “I do. I care. I give a -” she paused looking at him out of the corner of her eye. “- fuck. I constantly worry. I am always putting myself in check. It’s every second of every day.” She turned and looked at Spike, hazel eyes begging him to understand. “I’m so tired.”

“Yeah, I know the feeling.”  Spike said softly. “I heard it got pretty rough there.”

Willow nodded. They had moved so they were leaning next to each other on the kitchen counter. Her hair brushed against his jacket, making a soft scratching sound only he could hear.

“It was terrible. I was – and don’t get all macho-man-like on me about this – but I was unstoppable.” She looked ahead, unseeing. “It wasn’t like with Glory, or the Mayor, or  _ you _ . I was untouchable.” Her finger sparked for a second, tinging the air with magic. She noticed and shook out her hands, holding them in a tight clasp in front of her.

“Felt good.” He said, more a statement than a question.

“It felt amazing,” she said with a small bitter laugh. “I’ve never felt so free in my entire life. Everything was so clear.” Willow pressed her lips in a tight grimace.

“Nothing hurt.” Willow nodded as Spike continued. “I don’t think I ever said… about Tara… I’m sorry. She was one of the good ones.” 

He could tell without looking at her that there were tears in her eyes. “Sometimes I think that she was everything that was good in me. That when – when sh-she died that all that was good in me left with her.” She shook her head, her thoughts getting ahead of her, as she tried to stitch ill-fitting words to an indescribable feeling. “I know that’s not right. But Tara – she was my person – she was…”

“Everything.” Spike said, reverently. Love and the way it could encompass people, that was a feeling Spike  _ understood _ intimately.

“Yeah.” Willow said. “What if all that was left after was  _ her _ , the other me, the one with all the magic and black hair and nails…”

Spike risked looking at Willow; the girl was winding down. “I think you are answering your own question, love. You don’t want to be her;  _ she _ wouldn’t give  _ you _ a second thought.” He turned to her, a sad sideways smile on his face. “Love is the best and worst thing that could happen to a person. It makes you crazy and desperate and dumb and unbelievably happy. Love is madness manifested.”

Willow looked up at him with large imploring eyes. “Would you stop loving her, if you could?”

It was a little unsettling at times, how small Willow seemed, in comparison to how much power she had. 

“No. Not that I haven’t wanted to. Loving her has changed me. Love is torture, in my case literally, but what comes out the other side is always better than what went in. And love,” Spike paused, taking in a shaky breathe for resolve, “real love anyway, is worth the pain. You follow?”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. I’d never give up loving Tara, not for anything.”

“Alright, enough of this,” he said, stepping away from the counter and pointing at himself, then back at her. “Whatever this is. I have a soul but that doesn’t mean I need to goopy about it.” He smirked. “Plus, Red, you need some beauty rest. You don’t have my unnatural good looks.” 

She made a face at him and crossed her arms. Suddenly, it was like she was 16 again in the library of Sunnydale High. She might as well have been in that pink fuzzy number. Before she could speak, and say something as witty as “ _ Oh, yeah?, _ ” he continued his teasing. “It doesn’t sound like this ‘Dark Willow’ was all bad,” he said keeping his voice purposefully light and teasing. “She had some good beauty ideas. I do think you could use with some lacquer. What did those nature-lovers have you doing in England? Planting a field?”

Surprised, she flexed her hand, extending her fingers and looked down. Her cuticles were shredded from nervous picking. Her nails weren’t much better, each finger sporting a different shape and length as the one to it’s right or left. 

“You know,” she said. “I’ve never done my own nails. I always just - “ she waved her fingers in a way that may have been timed with a silent  _ bippity bobitty boo _ . “But never with actual polish.” 

Spike just looked at her with disbelief: she was like a little lost kitten. A little lost kitten who could eat a shark.  

“Oh, bloody hell.”  He sighed and grabbed her wrist with his own black-lacquered fingers, careful to not hold on too tight. “Come on then, I’ve got some in the basement.” 

“Spike - Oh, Ok!” She said as she tripped after him towards the basement door. 

 

+++

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the mods and other LIFFers. I hope you liked your fic, boo!


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